TAMIL NADU CIVIL SUPLIES CORPN EMP UNION Vs. TAMIL NADU CIVIL SUPLIES CORPN LTD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Tamil Nadu Civil Supplies Corporation Employees Union represented by its General Secretary and four others have filed the above writ petition seeking direction to the respondents to regularise the services of the petitioners 2 to 5 fixing their basic pay at the scale of lowest grade of employees at the lowest pay scale of the first respondent Corporation with effect from the date when they completed 480 days within the period of 24 calendar months, reckoning from their date of entry into service in the first respondent Corporation and further direct the respondents to pay the differences of amount to the aforesaid employees, working out on the basis, deducting the amount already paid to them within a reasonable time to be paid, by this Court.

(2.) The case of the petitioner is briefly stated hereunder: The first petitioner is a registered Trade Union and has been espousing cause of the said employees who are its members for several years. The respondent, a State owned Corporation engaged labourers in the godown at Gopalapuram, Chennai for the purpose of packing essential commodities, groceries and other items for distribution through its retail shops as well as "Amudham Departmental Stores". This process is being done from the year 1976 onwards and this activity is incidental and integral to the manufacturing activity of the respondent Corporation and is a perennial one. However, the respondent Corporation continued to engage these labourers on a daily wage basis for a very long period of time, without conferring them permanency and thereby denied the statutory welfare benefits which are extended to the permanent workmen.

(3.) It is further stated that the first petitioner Union on behalf of the petitioners 2 to 5 filed an application on August 14, 1982 under Section 3(1) of the Tamil Nadu Industrial Establishments (Conferment of Permanent Status to Workmen) Act, 1981 (hereinafter referred to as "the Act") before the concerned authority for the purpose of securing permanency for the aforesaid four workmen. By a letter dated March 28, 1994, the respondent Corporation agreed to confer permanent status to these workmen on certain conditions. The authority under the Act held that no condition can be imposed while conferring permanency as per Section 3(1) of the Act and passed orders in D.D. 12453 of 1992 dated April 30, 1994 and directed that the four employees involved in this case shall be made permanent with effect from the date they had completed 480 days within the period of 24 calendar months, reckoning their date of entry into service in the respondent establishment. Thereafter, the Senior Regional Manager, Tamil Nadu Civil Supplies Corporation Limited, Gopalapuram Chennai the second respondent herein, under his proceedings in R.C. No. A9/586/93 dated June 26, 1995 conferred permanent status to the aforesaid 4 employees but without regularisation of their services on the existing system of payment of wages. In such circumstances, having no other remedy, the petitioners have approached this Court for necessary relief as stated above.